March 23, 2009

Hardy Lake State Park near Austin, Indiana

We drove to Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky to tour the caves. John has always wanted to explore some caves in Kentucky (this stems back to the years he drove to Florida in the transport truck) so I found what I thought would be a good place to visit and Mammoth Cave was it. Turns out, it was a great choice as this is the longest cave system in the world. They had many options for cave tours so we picked the easiest since neither of us is in great physically fit condition and I will NOT go into small places too far underground. Next time I told John he can go tour wherever he wants and I'll wait in the motorhome ;)

Very interesting place with many stories of silly people doing silly things in dangerous places! As we walked to the entrance of the cave, the temperature dropped drastically! We went from t-shirts to coats and once in the cave, I wished I'd brought my winter lining for my jacket and my gloves!! Brrrr! We were down there about 1 hour and the depth was around 140 feet....not too bad. On our way out, the Ranger asked us to stop while he turned out all the lights so we could experience complete darkness. It was truly amazing! He told us that no matter how long we were in the is darkness, our eyes would never see more since there is no light at all and therefore nothing to adjust to. I thought of the blind and how this is what they experience their whole lives! It was a great experience that I won't probably ever venture into again but if I ever do, I hope I know how to take photos in dark places by then! Grrr, nothing worse than having a camera that will take great photos but not knowing how to use it!

Going down into the cave entrance

Inside the cave